A Beta Tomorrow: Tribes Ascend

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Jim told you all about the beginning of the signup period for the Tribes Ascend beta back when the news was fresh, but now that it’s stale I’m here with a friendly reminder that you only have one day left to apply/pay if you want in. One piece of potentially pertinent information is that no beta wipes will be performed between now and the game’s launch, so you can progress straight through the closed and open betas racking up unlockables. Jetpack antics await. Sign up here and leave fate to decide, or purchase the Tribes: Ascend VIP Starter Bundle for guaranteed access and a heap of in-game currency.

That may be an older, alpha screenshot because they have reduced the weapon models somewhat in the latest beta versions. I have played in a couple rounds of closed testing, and I can tell you that I haven’t noticed the weapon size to be a problem at all.

I think this is probably the first beta I’ve tried to get into. I have high hopes for getting in, although I have no idea of the probability. Also, if I do get in, I hope to have enough time on my hands to actually play the darn thing.

No, they’ve promised ‘centralised servers’ controlled by themselves. Not quite the same thing. I’m guessing London, Atlanta and Singapore: the same places Global Agenda is hosted. So anyone in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, South America or Oceania will have to put up with 300-500 ping.

well .. I tried it yesterday, and to be honest, it stinks. It looks like tribes 2 (but pweetier) and I gave me this warm fuzzy T1 and T2 nostalgia feeling … for about one minute. The biggest game breaker ( not only for me, considering the comments on the T:a forum) is the whole thing about loadouts.
In the two frist installments, players were able to choose freely their loadout at inventory stations, which meant that teams coud react to changes in the flow of battle and could use the weapon/pack combinations they were comfortable with. Not so in Ascend.
There you start off with a couple of pre-configured *not modifiable* setups. You will have to grind or shell out real money if you want a different armour, a different pack or different weapons, btu teven then there is no guarantee that you will have the setup you would like (and chances are you won’t).
I understand that they want to make money thorugh micro-transaction, but the way it is setup (and no, that is not just a Beta thing. It’s a permanent fixture of the game) it makes Tribes:ascend just painfull and completely unenjoyable to play. Add to that some weird issues about movement speeds, weapon strength, ~unlockable~ vehicles, rather unergonomic UI (with way too big weapons imo) and you have a real stinker on your hand.
Too bad,. I actually BOUGHT the VIP pack, but I guess I’ll go back to Tribes2, whcih is definitely not as pretty but has the gameplay elements exactly right.

(oh … the game is relatively stable so far, with a couple of memory related crashes but nothing too dramatic)